Case Study

Project Description

How can we make the topic of mortgages interesting enough to go viral, generate backlinks, compete with powerhouses like Mashable, and still relate to the first time buyer audience (… with a small budget)?

This was the question London & Country Mortgages asked Latitude.

So, Latitude asked the question: “If we carry out the research, create the artwork and build the promotional strategy, can London & Country’s mortgage brokers help place a value on a selection of castles from Game of Thrones?” And the client (also fans of the show) replied with a resounding YES.

After a month in production, the content was scheduled in time with the premiere of the fifth series – opening the door for Latitude’s SEO and Content teams to execute their meticulous launch strategy, which involved a combination of organic promotion, paid social advertising, and even a competition element in the second phase.

As a result, London & Country saw a 30,056% MoM increase in social traffic, over 11,000 social interactions, and a 66% increase in natural backlinks against its target (amongst many more benefits).

Strategy Development

Latitude wanted to create a piece of content users could share, get excited about and interact with. Given that we were working with a mortgage client, we wanted to make something which stayed relevant to the mortgage product offering of the client while still having mass appeal, as well as reaching the target audience for London & Country.

We carried out a competitor analysis piece first and decided that – for the most part– they were all just a bit boring. So we thought we’d try something a little more fun.

Enter Game of Thrones.

We knew Game of Thrones had a dedicated and incredibly active fanbase. The ownership of property plays a huge role in both the TV show and the books, and tends to reflect the power and influence of the House that owns it.

We loved the idea of taking something imaginary and making it real by working out its value in real-world money.

We used Google’s Trends tool to assess the times of year when GoT fans typically share the most content. As expected, this tended to be around when each series was released (and ended). So, we set a launch date to coincide with the Season 5 premiere.

With a Game of Thrones map in one hand and a map of the UK in the other, we figured out where in the UK each castle would be (in “real life). Then we worked out the size of each castle using various GoT fansites (including a Minecraft community who rebuilt every castle to scale, in video game format).

Finally, we used area property prices from Zoopla, along with London & Country’s knowledge, to help calculate the individual values.

Our strategy to increase brand awareness was to generate visits to the page where the content was hosted as well as to generate social and community buzz around the content through a mix of organic, community and paid social tactics.

Building a Buzz

We used a variety of paid and organic strategies to grow brand awareness via this campaign. From interacting as genuine fans on Reddit and Facebook, to launching a toolkit of paid options on a budget, we generated some pretty epic results.